I’ve watched IT Crowd half a dozen times.
I haven’t managed to finish an episode of BBT before I switch it off in disgust.
In other words, you have insufficient data to make a meaningful comparison.
It is amazing to me how people believe their subjective experiences automatically qualify for criticism.
I mean this is Lemmy. 98% of the people here believe that anyone who downvotes them is a Nazi and a fascist, plus whatever negative adjective you could think about
In my mind, I still picture this as the archetype of an office’s boss inside a boss’s office. If it doesn’t have the 4th breaking wall picture, then it’s a fake boss
See, a real boss, ready to work for the greater good
Chris Morris is a legend. I love Matt Berry but Morris is legitimately one of the most influential figures in British comedy.
FATHEERRRRRRR!!!
Ps: that’s how you know that J. Jonah Jameson wasn’t the boss at the daily Bugle, there was no self referential picture
People be forgetting that the first season or two of the big bang theory was legitimately very good.
The first season or two of the IT crowd was… oh yeah, the whole show.
IT crowd’s best episodes were best-in-class. tnetennba. But it had a lot of meh too.
The thing about the IT crowd is they always try and walk it in
big bang theory is about what dumb people think smart people are like.
apologies for the pixels, I stole it from reddit
bbt is blackface
Reddit ass comment
Not true. Blackface can be funny.
Anyone down voting you never saw tropic thunder or did and have no sense of humor, probably think big bang theory is banging.
It’s just a dude dressed up like a dude, pretending to be another due.
This is a charged topic that needs grace and nuance to do right. When blackface is done with the input, support and consent of the black community, it can re-open discussions about how black identities continue to be co-opted by white media.
Tropic Thunder is a great example of blackface as social commentary.
Sarah Silverman did it, too, as…I think a statement on stereotypes? There were levels there but I don’t think they were intentional.
Tropic Thunder had input, support, and consent of the black community?
I don’t believe it was, no. I said what I think should be done, not necessarily how things have been done.
I still think Tropic Thunder did it well, since it’s not making fun of black people, it’s making fun of how out of touch white people can be. I’m basing that off what Brandon T Jackson and other black performers have said about it in the years following its release.
I wouldn’t say dumb people. It’s a caricature, much like Dennis the Menace is a caricature of small children in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Only Big Bang Theory wasn’t based on an existing comic. So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Entertainment doesn’t always have to be authentic.
So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Actually a pretty good comparison given how awful Friends is.
Yes, it’s a horrible caricature, Henry Cavill is basically the template for most geeks these days.
Big bang theory is about nerds.
Also, BBT stayed entertaining for the most part throughout the 8 or so seasons it was on. IT started great and then dropped to “meh”.
How can you stay entertaining when you were never entertaining in the first place?
Oh look, a dumb person.
Calling a person dumb because they like watching sitcoms is like saying Gordon Ramsey isn’t a chef because he likes fast food burgers.
For sure it’s no contest. Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Cooper always tries to walk it in.
The big bang theory was not for geeks or nerds. It was pure shit.
It had a good few first episodes with fun geeky jokes, but it quickly turned to bad jokes and lazy stereotypes and relied loosely on stereotypes to contain the geekyness.
Misogynistic pure shit.
I always felt like it was a show for moms of geeks and nerds that missed their kids once they moved out.
I’m a geek and a nerd and i loved it, sorry.
Hush you! Can’t have people not joining in the dogpile on a TV show that ended 6 years ago…
No… the IT crowd is a sitcom FOR geeks. That other shit just makes fun of us
I believe this is what happened to Dr Who. When it started it was for science and history nerds, science sounding gobble-de-gook, cos play outfits, very low production values (the infamous duct tape boots). All just good fun.
When it was rebooted the focus had shifted. The Doctor as the cool guy, a Jesus figure, became more and more pronounced. They started to make fun of nerds on a regular bases. Amazing writing and production values, but at some point during the Tennant era I stopped watching in disgust.The original Doctor Who was an educational show mostly aimed at school aged children that used a sci-fi gimmick to teach history lessons (much of which are a bit outdated now). They would alternate storylines between future and past settings through most of William Hartnell’s run.
Towards the end of classic Who it was already much more like modern Who than those first seasons.
I only started with NuWho, watching it as it came out in 2005.
I found it magnificent, exactly because it shied away from glorifying violence, made emotions be the focus of things and there was clearly some large over-arching thing with “Bad Wolf”, but it wasn’t like in the American shows, where if there’s a clue to be seen, the camera zooms in on it, making sure you can’t miss it.
I gather you are right, and NuWho is way more American and hero-centric than Classic Who — but because it was and I was a teenager enjoying shows like Prison Break at the time — I got into Who, and then into better British shows, better shows in general, chasing that sort or good pacifist writing. Star Trek is ofc prolly the best franchise when it comes to actual philosophy. Doctor Who elicits emotions more than thought when compared to the Star Trek Ethos, albeit in a more profoundly British way.
Uuh there’s actually a new episode of Dr Who tonight that reminded me.
Oooh, it’s out already. And I have a few glasses of rum left. And a steak. And a pint of red. Ooooooh. This is turning out to be a nice day.
Anyway tldr completely agree with you, but I think going a bit American with NuWho was a crucial step in luring in more watchers to start appreciating the good things. Kinda how for a kid, it’s easier to learn to eat a new dish when you introduce it bit by bit or with copious amounts of ketchup or something — slowly teaching them that the bitterness is what makes it tasty.
If BBT was made today it would be accused of being written by AI. Fully flanderised characters, and endless filler episodes.
AKA “The Chuck Lorre Special”
The Big Bang Theory was frustratingly bad.
Saw a critic call it, “Nerd blackface”
IT crowd is about nerds for nerds. Big Bang theory is about nerds for non nerds. “Nerd blackface” is more succinct though.
Blackface is a bit more complicated and disturbing than “pretending to be like a black person for comic effect.” I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare it to to depictions of nerd culture.
It’s what stupid people think smart people sound like. I’ve never been able to watch it, but I remember hearing Sheldon brag about Ubuntu being his favorite Linux distribution? Like, can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
It’s stupid and disrespectful to geeky people, but it’s not perpetuating harmful and violent narratives.
brag about Ubuntu being his favorite Linux distribution we? Like, can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
H-hey!
I think the comment was also made by Sheldon? Sheldon’s character should be the kind of person who chews people out on forums for not reading the Arch Linux wiki, or to launch into the “GNU/Linux” copy pasta reflexively when Linux is brought up.
But that would require them to have more then a surface level understanding of the culture they’re making fun of lol.
Why???
can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
Ironically, that would be hilarious.
Amazing
Omfg, that describes it adequately.
perfection.gif
I saw some clips on YT where they removed the laugh track.
It’s really hard to find the show funny when they take out the bit where it tells you when to laugh.
I hate laugh tracks.
I watched and enjoyed TBBT, but I don’t rewatch it. I saw one of these videos with the laugh track removed and was honestly surprised at how awkward the show was without it. It didn’t change the fact that I liked it when I watched it though.
It’s mostly awkward because suddenly you have long times of silence normally occupied by the laugh track. If it was intended to be without a laugh track there wouldn’t be awkward silence.
Yeah, I’ve wondered what it’d be like if someone did one of those laugh track removal experiments, but re-edited to remove the quiet parts
This is kinda off topic, but there’s a show called Kevin Can Fuck Himself that plays around with sitcom tropes, wife and I enjoyed it a lot.
Fun fact. That show was filmed in front of a studio audience.
Although I don’t know if they augmented the audience with canned laughter in post.
Same with Friends and most shows with laugh tracks
I’ve seen that. Cringeworthy.
It got so popular, had occasional Star Trek references, even a cameo by Leonard Nimoy, and I still couldn’t get myself to enjoy it. It’s such a a shame.
My grandparents used to watch it. I think it had one (1) funny moment I saw in all the show’s run that I caught when living with them - when Neil DeGrasse Tyson calls up Bill Nye and says “I hear you’ve been talking shit about me”, and Nye immediately hangs up the phone in abject terror.
Their cameos in SGA were funnier. “Way to make all the kiddies cry neil, feel like a big man??”
I watched a lot of it back in the day and by like season 10 (I have no clue how long it ran) I realized it was super boring and bad. There would be jokes as lame as “dude owns a Nintendo 64”. That was the entirety of the joke.
Also there is a long running arc about a main character who is physically incapable of talking to women unless he is intoxicated (aka alcohol).
At some point the “humour” was just pop culture references.
is this not comedy gold?!
In the beginning it was kinda funny. But it went downhill pretty fast, got super cringe regarding the guys trying to get girlfriends, then the creepiest one of the lot gets one. Just ugh.
I like to say that Big Bang Theory was a stupid show about smart people, and Arrested Development was a smart show about stupid people.
Yes, it’s the “Friends” of it’s era - the comedy is in the laugh-track, I mean studio audience.
watched it, it was okey lol. don’t put too much thinking in it
No no IT Crowd is a show about sysadmins, not geeks lol. There’s a very clear difference.
And Moss was a nerd not a geek. He wasn’t obsessing about comics, videogames etc. like the characters in BBT.
Flashbacks to the rett & link “nerd VS geek” music video
That came out 12 years ago
The IT crowd came out almost 20 years ago
I also think this is a cultural difference. The comic book obsession seems more like an american thing. In the Netherlands and Belgium there is also a big comic book appreciation, but it’s much less about heroism and more humorous.
Okay but he didn’t obsess about the British equivalent of comic books either. Geeks obsess about consumerist pop culture whether it’s comics, LEGO or Harry Potter. And Moss did non of that.
Yeah, it’s an interesting difference.
There was a lot of pop culture references in IT Crowd, all the music posters, the retro computers, etc. but the cast didn’t even acknowledge it.
Yes, in the proportion of furries vs weebs.
BBT is a show about smart people for dumb people. The IT Crowd is a show about smart people.
No explanation necessary:
This changes my perspective on the entire show… I’m going to have to watch it again for the 152nd time with this in mind now.
If he’s low masking, how did he just have a chat about that ludicrous display last night?
I might require some explanation.
Autism.
Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic. While this strategy can help them get by at school, work and in social situations, it can have a devastating impact on mental health, sense of self and access to an autism diagnosis
Oh shit, I’m a high masker.
Getting through the day be like:
Subject: Fire. “Dear Sir stroke Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire which has broken out at the premises of…” No, that’s too formal. “Dear Sir stroke Madam. Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Help me, exclamation mark. 123 Carrendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. All the best, Maurice Moss.”
0118, 999, 881, 999, 119, 725…3.
Mid AF over here.
Oh good. I first thought this was some racist image editing joke based on skin colour. And everyone was happily going along with it.
I love this so much.
This image?
The show?
“Yes!” 💯
Id be tempted to swap jen and roy tbh
Because, similar to blackface in its time, people love to point and laugh at exaggerated caricatures of something different from themselves.
And CBS airs lowest common denominator garbage that the masses devour.
The term you’re looking for is minstrel shows https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
BBT is a minstrel show to humiliate smart people, anti intelligence sentiment is high in America
I watched one random episode of BBT after it was recommended to me by a few people. That one episode was enough for me to decide that I never want to see that show again, and also that I should disregard all recommendations from the people who said I should watch it.
The laugh track alone is enough evidence
IT Crowd also has a laugh track.
It tends to use it after actual jokes though.
IT crowd was filmed in front of an audience.
There is a laughtrack in IT Crowd too…
I watched a scene where someone posted it without the laugh track and it was super cringey. Semi-related note… Taking the laugh track out of BBT ruins it, but taking Garfield out of Garfield comics takes it to a new level, see here -> https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
I do prefer the Realfield edits, that replace Garfield with a normal cat.
Gives mire crazy cat guy than mental illness vibes.
Taking the laugh track out of anything ruins it. You are replacing laughter with dead air.
I’d be interested to see an edit of classic sitcoms with laughs (tracks or live), edited to remove both the laugh and the associated pause in the performance.
There would be more cuts than a fight scene from Taken. It would be super distracting.
Hmmm
I haven’t watched many sitcoms recently. I felt like those pauses for audience laughs were often where they’d cut to other camera angles anyway (likely to distract from how unnaturally long the characters paused in the middle of their conversations)… But I don’t have any concrete evidence to back up my feeling.
You might like the Heathcliffe without Heathcliffe posts right here on Lemmy https://lemmy.world/c/heathcliff
IT Crows was amazing, I laughed to death. Where the bigbang theory was not so funny, too much detail IMO.
IT Crowd was three British goofballs doing elaborate running gags over 24 episodes.
BBT was four creepy bigots and a nice blonde woman doing pop culture references and calling one another stupid for 279 episodes before spinning out an 80s nostalgia prequel series.
It was the difference between a few cherished cleverly crafted comedy routines and endless derivative slop.
Next season might turn out to be IT Pigeons
